FreeHand 9's Envelope Tool and Perspective Grid

ONCE YOU HAVE CREATED paths using any of FreeHand's creation tools, you can
modify those paths in a wide variety of ways. These modifications are called
path operations. Path operations are actions that start with one or more
paths and combine or manipulate them into new shapes.

The Envelope
tool, new to FreeHand 9, is one such operation. The Envelope toolbar allows
you to warp and distort graphics and text blocks and to store and reuse the
envelopes you create as presets. Or, you could use any of the 21
ready-made presets.

To apply a preset envelope to a graphic:

If the Envelope
toolbar is not visible, choose Window > Toolbars > Envelope
to open the Envelope toolbar (Figure 1).

Figure 1 The Envelope toolbar contains a number of preset shapes you
can choose among to distort an object.

Select the path
or text block you want to shape (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Envelope distortions can be applied to text blocks as well as to other
vector objects.